Identifying and Surpassing Contextual Barriers in Cross-Border Research Collaboration: The Case of the Sino-Swedish Project Shanghai Local Interaction Platform

The Swedish advanced knowledge in integrating within a vastly car-oriented transport system a new (or improved) breed of sustainable public transport operations, complemented by the Chinese ability to speedily support urban design innovation that could take even city-wide transportation systems to new heights, guarantees a contribution to mobility research of excellent scientific quality. Having in place a well-tested know-how mechanism to overcome cross-cultural differences between distant research philosophies is the most important hurdle in any scientific collaboration between those Sweden and China and could be vital for the success of the programme, despite the best of scientific intentions and planning. After almost two years from the initiation of Shanghai Local Interaction Platform, a consistent mechanism that will promote cross-border communication and the philosophy of shared responsibility is slowly but steadily taking its final form. This work is describing this process

Designing the Metropolitan Future of Shanghai: A Local Interaction Platform Looking to Incorporate Urban Access Design Considerations in Planning for a Fairer, Denser and Greener Mega-City

Urban design, that will formulate resourceful ways to promote more sustainable and socially inclusive mobility patterns, is the key to reversing the alarming energy over-consumption, the environmental degradation, and the negative distributional impacts associated with today's cities that tend to relegate anthropocentric design considerations to the status of a non-issue. Urban access is an innovative and truly trans-disciplinary design axiom that aims to incorporate these considerations to mainstream future urban planning. It does this by ensuring that every member of the society has access to those locations and resources one needs to achieve a sustainable standard of living and productivity without limiting other people’s rights of access. Designing built environments for achieving optimum urban access levels for everyone, regardless of possible age or mobility limitations, serves as the thematic framework for the research studies of the Local Interaction Platform (LIP) Shanghai discussed in this paper. This is a Sino-Swedish research scheme goaled towards increasing capacities, in order to transform current, unsustainable urban development pathways to more sustainable urban futures for the metropolitan environment of Shanghai. This paper presents a research synopsis of the various and diverse urban access driven studies that are on the focus of LIP Shanghai regarding the city’s: existent road network infrastructure limitations, bus systems accessibility design, potential to have a public bicycle programme in place and existing car travel demand management mechanism and its possible alternative

Public Bicycles: How the Concept of Human-Oriented “Mobility Sharing” Technology Can Influence Travel Behaviour Norms and Reshape Design Education

Although at the moment an excess of 500 public bicycle schemes of variable sizes operate in almost 50 countries worldwide, the impact of their use on travel behaviour and modal change have neither been studied extensively nor have been understood thoroughly as yet. This work negotiates the initial stages of an international research scheme that means to look into the attitudes and system user experiences (the latter only when it is applicable) that could define the design (or re-design) criteria for three public bicycle schemes in three cities of different size and culture. These systems are currently on three dissimilar operational phases spanning from bidding for funding to actually having a fairly successful system already in place. As a matter of fact, the choice of the three case study cities represent an effort to frame the dynamics of the bike-sharing phenomenon in a micro-scale (Drama, Greece, 50.000 residents), meso-scale (Gothenburg, Sweden, 500.000 residents) and mega-scale (Shanghai, China, 23 million residents) looking also into the attitude-shaping process before and after the implementation of a scheme. This project’s didactic role is a twin one; it aims to reinforce education practice on sustainable mobilities design by using student projects as an apparatus for supporting research and promoting urban change in real societal terms and subsequently to integrate the findings of the research into future postgraduate and undergraduate course material. Thus, bike-sharing design, for the means of this paper, aims to serve as an academic platform for integrating and synchronising research and education by promoting a balanced and timely development of technological opportunities that capture the mobility needs of tomorrow

Encouraging Sustainable Urban Access: An Exploratory Student Approach to Design of Product Service Systems

Urban access is a key trans-disciplinary design axiom looking to ensure that every member of the society can reach those locations and resources one needs for a sustainable standard of living and productivity. This should be achieved in a way that does not deprive others from their right to access the same urban environment. Crafting the future of urban transportation design is a dynamic process that depends on developing a thorough understanding of the complexity of the human needs that associate with delivering ways to support urban access and, in particular, more sustainable and socially inclusive mobility patterns. New market demands and customer expectations force public and private organisations to expand their commitment to cross-border collaborations to provide attractive alternative transport modes. This paper discusses the challenge of utilizing design innovation as a tool for eco-branding and how an exploratory approach to this has been used in a post-graduate course in Visual Brand Identity and Product Design. Seven research teams, closely guided by the authors, were affiliated with designing an innovative hypothetical bike-sharing scheme for the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, with the potential to captivate road users’ acceptability. An overall description of the project concept and a brief summary of the results produced are presented herein. More specifically, this paper concentrates solely on one of the most innovative projects delivered within the course and discusses how the students adopted the challenge, as well as the actual project outcome and its contribution to the overall learning experience

Strategic Design through Brand Contextualization

Providing meaningful customer experience is at the core of any successful business activity. Brands can function as vehicles to bundle the ingredients of experience together and give them structure by which consumers are able to understand and interpret products and services. To complement the technical and functional reality and experience, brands create particular narratives around products and services, within the realm of their use experience. This paper aims to contribute to understanding of strategic design and brand contextualization by looking thoroughly into a research-driven student project. The product-service design assignment given to seven teams of four to five post-graduate students was to design a new bike-sharing system, serving the sustainable urban mobility needs of the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. The task was accompanied by a request to create a fictive brand case and specific brand narrative, based on a thorough analysis of pre-selected existing brands. The paper discusses how the teams crafted their brand narratives and how different design and service elements were used to create specific and meaningful brand experiences. In addition to the contribution of the paper to design research and practice, we present a process that might be more widely useful for the education of strategic design and brand management

Innovative Bike-Sharing Design as a Research and Educational Platform for Promoting More Livable Urban Futures

Studying the viability of innovative urban access design is the key in achieving optimum results when attempting to transform dogmatism referring to conventional car-orientation into a meaningful driver of modal change founded on the actual societal needs for future transportation. An efficient public bicycle scheme could be the very definition of a system that could encourage and even facilitate, in real terms, such a transition. This paper is discussing how a post-graduate course embraced, through the means of a service-oriented design exercise, the potential introduction of such a system. More specifically, seven research teams, closely guided by the three authors, were affiliated with designing a new hypothetical bike-sharing scheme in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden more captivating than the existing one. The paper reports on: a) the novel educational approach the tutors employed, b) the taught experiences that helped the students utilize their potential as learners but also as inventive designers, c) the research in terms of design results and d) the overall transition from solely serving the needs of automotive mobility in urban environments, to creating a knowledge platform that actually illustrates an improved design-innovation process to tackle future urban demands and eventually have a real-life context impact on the city of Gothenburg

How circular is current design practice? Investigating perspectives across industrial design and architecture in the transition towards a circular economy

The transition to a circular economy (CE) produces a range of new challenges for designers and requires specific knowledge, strategies, and methods. To date, most studies regarding design for a CE have been theoretical and conceptual, hence, limited research has been conducted on the practical implications of designing for a CE. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide a better understanding of how design practitioners interpret and implement the CE concept in practice. To capture the complexity of real-world cases, semi-structured interviews were carried out with design practitioners (N\ua0=\ua012) within the disciplines of architecture and industrial design who have actively worked with circularity in a design agency setting. The results show that the practitioners have diverse perspectives on designing for a CE, relating to (1) the circular design process, (2) the effects of the CE on design agencies, (3) the changing role of the designer, and (4) the external factors affecting circular design in practice. Some differences were identified between the architects and industrial designers, with the industrial designers more strongly focused on circular business models and the architects on the reuse of materials on a building level. In addition, circular strategies and associated (similar) terminologies were understood and applied in fundamentally different ways. As the CE blurs boundaries of scale and disciplines, there is a need for universal design frameworks and language. The CE concept is expanding the scope of the design process and driving the integration of new knowledge fields and skills in the design process. The successful implementation of the CE in practice is based on extensive collaboration with stakeholders and experts throughout all stages of the design process. Design agencies have addressed the CE by establishing dedicated CE research and design teams, facilitating knowledge exchange, developing their own circular strategies and methods, and striving for long-term client relationships that foster the engagement of designers with the lifecycles of designed artefacts rather than perceiving design projects as temporary endeavors. Ultimately, a holistic and integral approach towards design in a CE is needed to ensure that the underlying CE goals of contributing to sustainable development and establishing a systemic shift are ongoingly considered

Waste sorting in apartments: integrating the perspective of the user

In order to increase resource recovery from solid waste, better sorting of household waste is needed. This article reports on a case study about waste sorting infrastructure performance carried out in two buildings in Gothenburg, Sweden. Results from the study reveal mismatches between users' needs and what the system offers, affecting the sorting rates and quality of the sorted material. Frequent sorting errors were observed from the tenants in these apartment buildings, where more than 70% of the discards that go in the mixed waste could be sorted out into other available fractions, with biodegradable waste being the most neglected. Hazardous waste was often discarded wrongly and recurrent errors were observed in the containers available for sorting different packaging material. Given the performance observed, initial suggestions are made for housing companies to rethink the sorting system they offer to their tenants (i.e. accessible space for electronic waste, more space for biodegradable waste, possibility of sorting textiles, etc.). Most importantly this paper makes the case that housing companies have the opportunity to provide sorting infrastructure that is designed for the user, rather than just fitted to the waste management system

(How) Can Appliances be Designed to Support Less Energy-Intensive Use? Insights from a Field Study on Kitchen Appliances

This paper presents findings from a study carried out to contribute to the growing knowledge base within the Design for Sustainable Behaviour research field. Coffee makers, electric kettles and toasters were evaluated to explore if and why particular appliances may mediate less energy-intensive use to a greater extent than others. Eighteen participants used three appliances of the same type for two weeks each, during which the participants’ use of the appliances and the resulting energy use were monitored. In addition, semi-structured interviews and online surveys were conducted to explore how the appliances’ functions and overall design influenced energy use. The findings show that both specific functions and the design as a whole form the design characteristics that set preconditions for energy use. The study thus suggests that if appliances are not designed to support energy conservation holistically, there is a risk that aspects that have not been addressed will lead to more energy-intensive use. This makes it essential for designers to consider the full variety of characteristics influencing energy use. Based on the findings, design opportunities were identified and design guidelines formulated. The insights gained highlight new opportunities for design practice that can aid designers in designing for less energy-intensive use

Is there a need for new kitchen design? Assessing the adaptative capacity of space to enable circularity in multiresidential buildings

This paper aims to contribute to the development of spatial criteria for adaptive capacity, which is identified as one important factor for the transition towards more circular housing design. The paper focuses on the kitchen, as an important function of the home which is connected to large resource flows and is exposed to frequent renovations and replacements. This paper identifies spatial characteristics of the kitchen and evaluates their potential to accommodate circular solutions focusing on adaptive capacity. As a first step, previous literature on the spatial characteristics of kitchens and indicators that support adaptability is reviewed. These are then used to develop an analytical framework to assess the adaptive capacity and circularity potential of 3624 kitchens in contemporary Swedish apartments. A qualitative approach in combination with quantitative methods is employed to analyse the selected sample. The main contributions of this paper include its spatial analytical framework, its descriptive presentation of contemporary kitchen and apartment designs, and its adaptive capacity assessment of the studied kitchens. The results point out that although the over-capacity of the floor area of kitchens and apartments can have significance for adaptability, it is not the only determinative spatial characteristics. The windows\u27 location and distribution, the number of door openings and traffic zones, the shafts’ location and accessibility from multiple rooms, the room typology and the kitchen typology can improve the adaptive capacity and circularity potential of kitchens and dwellings. The findings show that in contemporary floorplans advantageous design solutions connected to the identified spatial characteristics are not applied in a systematic way. Further research is necessary to define the exact measures of the individual spatial characteristics and their combined application in multiresidential floorplan design